Maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) receivers have been used in fiber optic communication systems operating at data rates up to 10 Gb/s to counteract signal distortions due to chromatic and polarization-mode dispersion. (See, e.g., H. F. Haunstein et al., “Principles for Electronic Equalization of Polarization-Mode Dispersion,” J. Lightwave Technol., vol. 22, pp. 1169-1182, 2004; F. Buchali et al., “Viterbi equalizer for mitigation of distortions from chromatic dispersion and PMD at 10 Gb/s,” in Proc. Opt. Fiber Commun. Conf. (OFC), MF85, 2004; A. Farbert et al., “Performance of a 10.7-Gb/s receiver with digital equalizer using maximum likelihood sequence estimation,” Proc. European Conf. on Opt. Commun. (ECOC), p. Th4.1.5, 2004; and J. J. Lepley et al., “Excess penalty impairments of polarization shift keying transmission format in presence of polarization mode dispersion,” IEEElectron. Lett., vol. 36, no. 8, pp. 736-737, 2000.)
MLSE has also been used to mitigate distortions due to narrow-band electrical filtering such as is typically used in receivers. (See, e.g., F. Buchali et al., “Correlation sensitive Viterbi equalization of 10 Gb/s signals in bandwidth limited receivers,” Proc. Opt. Fiber Commun. Conf. (OFC), OFO2, 2005; and H. F. Haunstein et al., “Optimized Filtering for Electronic Equalizers in the Presence of Chromatic Dispersion and PMD,” Proc. Opt. Fiber Commun. Conf. (OFC), MF63, 2003.)
The performance of receiver systems employing MLSE may be improved under certain conditions by over-sampling the received data signal and applying the MLSE algorithm to the increased number of samples.